(Phys.org)—As chemical reactions proceed, the reactants combine to form intermediates and those short-lived intermediates eventually become products. Reaction kinetics is concerned with how long it takes ...

On Dec. 10, ESA announced the latest important discovery regarding comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta spacecraft orbiting the comet has found the water vapor from its target to be significantly different ...

The team responsible for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on NASA's Curiosity rover has made the first definitive detection of organic molecules at Mars. Organic molecules are the build ...

A team of researchers supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Program has turned to acupuncture in order to study samples from rough and uneven surfaces, such as rocks and meteorites. Using the technique, ...

A new technique makes it possible to quickly detect the presence of drugs or to monitor certain medical conditions using only a single drop of blood or urine, representing a potential tool for clinicians ...

Researchers may soon have a better idea of how tiny particles of pollution are formed in the atmosphere. These particles, called aerosols, or particulate matter (PM), are hazardous to human health and contribute ...

In her work of analysing the silver coins recovered from six ships, wrecked off the WA coast over almost two centuries, PhD candidate Liesel Gentelli finds herself thinking of some of the wreck survivors.

If you're out in the field doing environmental testing, food checks, forensic work, or other chemical analysis, mass spectrometry is an extremely accurate detection tool with one huge drawback: You can lose ...

A fast-sensitive "electronic-nose" for sniffing the highly infectious bacteria C. diff, that causes diarrhoea, temperature and stomach cramps, has been developed by a team at the University of Leicester.

Little research has been done on comets and they still hold many secrets. One theory is that comets brought water (and thus possibly even life) to earth. Although space probes have been able to carry out ...

When life on Earth was first getting started, simple molecules bonded together into the precursors of modern genetic material. A catalyst would have been needed, but enzymes had not yet evolved. One theory ...

Mass spectrometry

Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique for the determination of the elemental composition of a sample or molecule. It is also used for elucidating the chemical structures of molecules, such as peptides and other chemical compounds. The MS principle consists of ionizing chemical compounds to generate charged molecules or molecule fragments and measurement of their mass-to-charge ratios. In a typical MS procedure:

MS instruments consist of three modules: an ion source, which can convert gas phase sample molecules into ions (or, in the case of electrospray ionization, move ions that exist in solution into the gas phase); a mass analyzer, which sorts the ions by their masses by applying electromagnetic fields; and a detector, which measures the value of an indicator quantity and thus provides data for calculating the abundances of each ion present. The technique has both qualitative and quantitative uses. These include identifying unknown compounds, determining the isotopic composition of elements in a molecule, and determining the structure of a compound by observing its fragmentation. Other uses include quantifying the amount of a compound in a sample or studying the fundamentals of gas phase ion chemistry (the chemistry of ions and neutrals in a vacuum). MS is now in very common use in analytical laboratories that study physical, chemical, or biological properties of a great variety of compounds.